Unidentified Particulates
by katiedavis
Summary: Revenge always seems like something so small and self-contained...until you see what it does to those left behind. Hodgela...sort of, with some B/B/Parker goodness because I love the kid. Slight AU and Season 6 speculation, but otherwise safe.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I just thought it would be kind of fun to play with the spoilers/speculation about a "sniper" villain in Season 6. This is NOT a casefic, but rather what I think the aftermath of a case like that could be, if everything worked out. This happens about 2-2 ½ years forward from Season 6, so just suspend disbelief and imagine that B/B have worked through all their issues and are now together, and Hodgela had a boy.

Also, a fair warning. Someone dies, but it's not the usual Booth or Brennan angsty-tragedy death. It's someone else...

Unidentified Particulates: Chapter One

He watches the three of them, the man, the woman, the little boy, as they enter the diner through the scope of his rifle.

High up where even the birds don't dare come fly by.

Zooms to the boy's gleaming blue eyes.

The woman's blindingly bright grin.

The man's wild hair.

He imagines their laugh when he sees the woman throw back her head, her small son in her arms.

He reads the man's lips: _Hey, Mary, that'll be two coffees and a small sundae, extra strawberry syrup. _

And the waitress says: _Ha, is the little cutie gonna order for himself next time? Lookit them great-lookin' genes gone to work already._

He escaped from prison last week.

The scanner says they've got a location. _Sixty seconds._

Maybe they'll bring a helicopter.

His gut tells him he's got _forty-five seconds_ before they can lock another guy's gun on him_. It's not enough time._

To make sure _Agent Booth_ and _Dr. Brennan_ burn in each of their own private hells, alone and begging for mercy.

To make sure _Caroline Julian_ and_ Dr. Saroyan _run away from here with their tails between their legs, and take the rest of their blasted team, _Dr. Hodgins_ and _Angela Montenegro_ never come back either.

There's a price to be paid for those who condemned him to two years of solitary confinement, alone with his hellish private thoughts.

Never even killed anyone in DC.

So why is he here?

_Thirty-five seconds._

Because their little bastard bug man found some rare whatever-the-hell plant in his shoes (damn right, his shoes) that tied him through the cities where he _had_ killed.

Little thing that ruined everything for him...

He doesn't know what the bug guy looks like.

Doesn't remember.

That's what blind hate does to you, and he has plenty.

That hardly matters though, because it won't matter who dies for his revenge against the Jeffersonian.

He's never killed in DC.

He won't kill a child, or a woman.

Nobody believes it, but he is a man of duty and ethics.

He believes in God, and silently thanks the man upstairs when the woman takes her son to wash the ice cream from his face and shirt.

They shouldn't see this. _Ten seconds._

A single shot rips through the diner, straight to the back of the man's head. Blood leaks out between his curls, and he imagines screams rings out through the air.

He doesn't know the man.

Doesn't know who he's killed, what he's done. _Five seconds._

All he knows is that someone had to die here. Today. Someone had to show the lab rats in the damn brain trust they're not untouchable.

_They're not safe._

So he dies happy, by the hand of another sniper perched above the blue-and-grey washed streets of Washington, with a gap-toothed grin on his face.

He believes in God, and he'll see the daughter they took from again.

That's good.

_Zero._

Dr. Temperance Brennan surveyed the street below her twelfth-floor apartment from her balcony, sipping on a guava smoothie as her soon-to-be-stepson, Parker Booth, raked a hand through his long, blond, locks, following her gaze down to the crosswalk.

"Hey, Bones? Are you okay?" he asked, reaching across the table for his own chocolate milkshake.

She had been helping him with some homework from his fifth-grade gifted Math program, but seemed distracted, glancing up and down the buildings across from them with dread.

"Parker...I apologize. Would you like to go inside? Maybe using some counters would help you with the last couple of problems, and I have some things we can use in the kitchen.", she replied, beginning to gather his books from the table.

Parker shrugged. Despite only recently celebrating his entry into the "Double-Digit Age Club" , he could read Bones almost as good as his Dad.

She was worried about the bad guy Dad said might want to hurt them after he escaped from prison. Parker had heard them arguing about it the night before, and knew it was the only reason why his Mom had let him stay home from school and spend an extra day with Bones, even if she had told him it was so he could get ahead on his math and recover from his last hockey tournament.

The guys in his new PeeWee hockey division were much bigger and checked brutally, leaving him with a few still-aching bumps and bruises that Bones had frowned upon, though she assured him he would hit his growth spurt in a little while and be roughly the same size as his opponents soon enough.

She was good like that.

He followed her inside, and shut the door behind them as Bones began washing their glasses in the sink.

The boy glanced at the gleaming ring on her left hand, which seemed to shine even more under a steady stream of tap water. Now that Dad and Bones were definitely together, some things had changed, like Bones being upgraded from "Emergency Contact" to "Next-Available Legal Guardian" on his school papers, and his Mom's growing dislike of the every other week he was scheduled to be with Dad, but it was actually pretty cool.

He was gonna be the ring bearer in the wedding, and was supposed to go shopping for a sharp-looking suit with Bones' best friend Angela over the weekend.

"Bones, I'm just gonna go to the bathroom, okay?", he called as she turned down the water.

"Sure." She reached for a dishcloth, just as her phone on the kitchen counter began to ring.

"Brennan. What is it?"

"Bones? Are you-you and Parker...everything's okay, right?", her partner-_no, fiancé,_ she corrected herself-asked, sounding terrified for his family's well-being.

"Booth? Of course, everything's fine. Booth...What's wrong?" Brennan's heart skipped a beat (metaphorically, of course) as her eyes swept across the apartment, suddenly worried for Parker, though she knew that the windowless bathroom was indisputably safe.

"It's...at the diner...Hodgins...he's-he's...Dammit, Bones. Dammit! We had the guy, but we just couldn't. _Shit!_" His voice crackled over the phone, but Brennan could hear him choking up, angry, desperate, and overcome by nothing but raw, emotion.

It was doing Brennan's heart rate no good, if the blood pulsing in her ears was any evidence.

Parker chose that moment to come out of the bathroom, running as fast as he could in a tiny apartment hallway when her met Bones' terrified eyes, clutching her phone in a white-knuckled vice grip.

"Bones? What's wrong?". He asked, as free hand flew to his back and brought him to her chest.

"He's dead Bones. That sniper serial killer Hodgins' evidence put away just put a few rounds in the back of his head.", Booth told her, his voice frighteningly collected and cold.

Yeah, I killed off Hodgins.:( 

Look, I don't hate him or anything, but...after Brennan's lynchpin analogy and the countless Booth or Brennan or even Angela get killed off fics, I just wanted to try something new, and try to see if I could write a Hodgins-less team. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but please let me know in reviews or messages. 

For those of you who want me to continue, there are more chapters already written, but again, if people hate on this enough, I'm fine with leaving it as a one-shot.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Whoa! Four reviews and the same number of alerts! Pretty good, guys and gals! Here's the next chapter for you! I decided to name Hodgela-kid! Liam Henry, in honor of my little brother, who's also a Bones fan. Mostly for the bodies and Booth, his eight-year-old self is WAY too manly for the love! ;)

Unidentified Particulates: Chapter Two

Angela Montenegro raked a hand through her wavy, newly highlighted hair, checking her reflection in the mirror as her son, Liam, struggled with the soap dispenser next to one of the bathroom sinks. His striking cobalt blue eyes, almost hidden behind a mop of curly dark hair, glared at the container, almost daring it to make it even harder for him.

Angela would have found it kinda cute, totally picture-worthy even, if Liam's shirt wasn't soaked through and his bare feet on the counter weren't earning glares from the assembled line-up of women behind them.

"I_ got_ this.", he replied, giggling as though it was some sort of elaborate puzzle. Angela blamed Hodgins for their son's passion for taking anything, no matter how uninteresting, apart, for nothing but the sake of doing it. It definitely wasn't like he was supposed to learn anything else from last Christmas' pre-disassembled Hot Wheel collection.

_Squints._

"_Honey. Come on_.", she whispered forcefully, ignoring an older mother glowering at the both of them. Just 'cause she didn't give a damn what people thought of her didn't mean she liked being one of those people others actually thought about.

"No!", he cried as she gave him a sharp tug back.

"Liam-", she began, cut off by the raining shower of glass and its accompanying chorus of screams that rung out from behind the bathroom entrance.

"Noooo!", he screamed, as Angela pulled him from the counter and tackled both of them to the floor, just like she and Jack had practiced with the Jeffersonian team during their last disaster drill.

_Jack._

_The Jeffersonian._

_Disaster._

"What?", Brennan murmured in disbelief, still clutching Parker to her chest. Her fingers tightened around the phone, and her voice hitched in disbelief.

"He's gone, Bones. Just a second and...I should've known! _Dammit!",_ Booth said, simultaneously angry and disappointed. They were his people, and this was his case to put away. It shouldn't ever have come this close to them.

"What happened, Bones? What happened?", Parker continued, his voice muffled by the fabric of her sweater. She pulled him closer still, and felt his pulse coursing reassuringly through her hand.

"Booth? Where's Angela?", she asked, her heart cracking (metaphorically, of course) just a little bit at the prospect of her friend's fate.

Liam wailed under his mother's shadowy body, on top of him like a sort of shield. It hurt falling from the counter, and nobody paid attention to him, his cries lost under the shuffle of customers pushing to get out.

Angela scooped him up, pulling him under the sink with her as chaos reigned around them. Purses and bags had been dropped, and the bathroom floor was littered their contents, floating in filthy mud and water. She squeezed tighter into the corner with him, clapping a hand over his mouth as he continued to cry, fat teardrops rolling down his cheeks.

It would help neither of them to be quiet if the psycho with a gun came inside; though she had the inkling feeling he had been perched atop a building across the street, long dead by the hands of someone under Booth's orders.

No.

Please, please, please, let this be some stupid kid who wanted to get on the news, Angela prayed, her salty tears dripping into Liam's hair.

"Want Dad!", he shouted from behind her palm, struggling against her grip.

Brennan parked her hybrid behind the army of Police cruisers, pushing her way past a human roadblock of officers and federal agents, shoving her Jeffersonian ID tag at their faces as she passed.

Booth had to be mistaken. Perhaps Hodgins, Angela, and Liam, had been in the diner, but had escaped any sort of injury running out the back with most of the Diner's other patrons, who were now standing in a line-up before an ambulance, getting Band-Aids and being checked off a list.

She searched for them in the back of the group, running towards a curly-haired little boy wearing an orange shirt, the back of his collar stained with blood.

"Liam!", Brennan shouted as she grabbed his thin arm, pulling him away from the line.

"Who the hell are you? Hey, what the hell, lady, you trying to take my kid? Did my sleaze ball wife put you up to this? God, that bit-", the man from behind them protested.

"Hey! Hey, keep it civil, people!", an officer shouted, stepping between Brennan and the boy's father.

"Ma'am, are you authorized to be here? It's a federal crime scene now, but if you're family, I can show where to wait.", he supplied, as the boy's disgruntled father turned away.

"I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan, with the FBI and the Jeff- ", she began to recite, pulling her credentials from her pocket.

"Damn..._the Jeffersonian_? Aw, hell. With Agent Booth, right?", he asked.

Brennan nodded, following the officer through the crowd.

"You're a forensic anthropologist, right? Damn, we could use one of those for this.", he told Brennan, leading her past the shattered doors of the Diner.

"I'm really sorry, Ma'am. You sure you need to see this? I hear he was one of you guys.", the officer muttered, clearly horrified by the scene before him.

Brennan looked up, her vision suddenly assaulted with the sea of fresh, dark, blood, clinging to the corners of everything before her.

Booth ignored the murmurs on his walkie-talkie, pushing past the diner's assembled customers and staff, flashing his badge at random as he tried to get back in through the back entrance. Angela and Liam hadn't been in any of the counts, hadn't made any calls or texts, and the family car was still in its parking space down the road, shining ominously in the reflection of the cruisers that surrounded it.

They were still here, left behind in the chaos and rush.

He kicked down the door of the men's washroom, and then remembering Parker's early years with Rebecca, did the same to the women's room.

"Angela! Liam!", he called out, rifling through each of the stalls, desperation growing as each one was empty.

"Stud Muffin Booth?", a childish giggle erupted from under the sink counter.

"Liam!", a weak whisper reprimanded. Booth crouched to the floor, feeling past the pipes to the mother and child squeezed against the wall.

"Angela? Hey, buddy, where'd you learn that?", he said gently, as Liam crawled into his arms. He sat the boy on the counter as Angela rose beside him, jaw clenched in terror.

Booth took a quick inventory of Liam's mostly minor injuries, scrapes and bruises that he knew probably came from Angela trying to get him under her when she'd heard the shots. They shared a glance confirming it; both parents that would die for their children.

"How about we get cleaned up, Liam?", Booth asked, trying to be reassuring despite the obvious sadness and anger in his voice.

"I want Dad! Where's Dad!", Liam wondered aloud, swinging his legs from the countertop.

"Booth, where's Jack? Did he...he's outside, isn't he? Go take Liam and get Jack...", Angela stopped mid-sentence, Booth's silence hanging between them.

"Booth? Booth..._NO_!", she screamed, launching herself at him in complete raging desperation, her body slamming into his, her voice muffled by his broad shoulders.

Liam looked on, reaching for a lock of his mother's hair and tugging it affectionately, just like he'd seen Dad did to say _"Everything's going to be fine."_

Again, if you want any more, please keep up the TERRIFIC reviews!


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I'm amazed by how many of you are reviewing and adding this story to faves and alerts! Also, the quality of your guys` comments is just great! Chapter 3 for you awesome folks! I thought we should see Cam and Parker again!

Unidentified Particulates: Chapter 3

Dr. Camille Saroyan watched Parker through her kitchen hallway, observing him with the same intensity she did a fresh body as he paced between the table and counter, with the same scared, angry, glare on his face as she`d seen on his father`s more times than she cared to count.

The boy`s blond locks bounced with each step, and the front of his shirt was soaked with the tears he had quietly cried while picking at the leftover pizza she had served him. Cam herself had no idea what was going on, only that Brennan, looking pale and harried, had dropped Parker off with the phone number for the hotel Rebecca was staying at, and reminded her that he hadn`t had dinner yet.

She`d considered calling Booth, though she suspected the reason he was here might have been because of some disciplinary action Brennan had taken, or some issue at school both of his parents were aware of. It was rare that Parker cried at all, and the last thing she needed was Booth thinking that something like a lower than usual test grade was cause to call out the National Guard.

No, it was Booth and Brennan`s issue to deal with. They were the happy couple responsible for the kid, after all.

Despite that, she still wanted to know what was going on.

``Parker...do you want to tell me what's going on?", she asked gently, hoping she wasn't intimidating the boy.

He turned to her, wiping furiously at his still red eyes, glaring up at her as though he was embarrassed she'd seen him cry.

_Typical Booth,_ Cam thought, almost rolling her eyes.

"It's all right if you don't. I'll be in the living room if you...", Cam paused, studying the anger and intensity that flashed across Parker's eyes.

"This is your fault!", he cried, sweeping his food of the table with a pudgy fist. Cam watched the plate clatter and break on the kitchen floor, slightly shocked at Booth's son's behaviour.

"It's all because of you! You're the boss and everything's your fault!", he raged, tears flowing freely again.

"What-Parker, what's my fault?", she asked, trying for timid and ending up sounding as though she had a cough caught in the back of her throat.

"Mom-I mean, Bones, says you're the boss and you're, um_, responsible_.", he sputtered. "The bad guys got someone because you're...inco-incom-incompe-_I don't know_!"

She stepped towards him and touched the top of his head, listening as his anger dissolved into more desperate tears. Crouching beside him, Cam tilted Parker's chin to look up at her as he tried to wipe at his cheeks with his sleeve.

"Honestly, sometimes Bones runs the lab more so than I do, Parker.", she chuckled, trying to make him smile despite the terrible feeling that this wasn't just some run-of-the-mill parent-child argument building up inside her.

"It's not her fault!", Parker shouted, slapping her hand away and running into the adjacent living room, where he balled himself up into a corner and continued to cry. Bones had seemed so afraid in the car on the way over, and had kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other firmly locked to his forearm, as though she would lose him at any second. When she had dropped him off, Parker knew she was trying her best to keep from crying, which scared him more than anything.

If Bones was afraid of something, it meant everyone else didn't have a chance.

Cam sighed as she began to sweep up the remnants of Parker's plate, trying to ignore him sobbing in the next room. She headed up to the bedroom, cell in hand, intending to call Booth and get his take on things, whatever that might make him do be damned. Maybe she'd call Hodgins over, or Angela. They both probably knew how to deal with a young boy in distress more so than she did, after all.

She grinned at her boyfriend Paul's clothes strewn across their bedroom. Maybe she'd have to learn how to deal with kids crying soon, too.

As Cam scrolled through her speed dial, she switched on the TV, set to the news channel she'd been watching with him last night.

"-This is Nicole Whaley, live on location at the Royal Diner in Washington, DC, where it appears as though a sniper attack has claimed the life of a man out for an early dinner with his family. We're only learning the details now, but from what we know, his name was Jack Hodgins, employed by our city's own Jeffersonian Institution as a forensic entomologist. Police sources have also confirmed that the assailant was this man, in the photograph to your left, whom the Jeffersonian's medical-legal division was also responsible for helping to put away in one of the most high profile trials of the past five years-"

She could almost feel her heart hit the floor as the camera shifted back to a shot of the diner, its broken windows soaked with blood drying in the mid-afternoon sun.

Brennan burst into the washroom, her hands and shirtsleeves wet with blood from having to make the ID for the investigators in the front of the diner.

Upon seeing her best friend clinging to her fiancé, her son swinging his legs innocently from the counter, barefoot and humming along to a song only he could know, she felt the frantic urge to scrub the blood from her hands and sink to the floor in tears.

It wasn't logical...it _wasn't_...Why not Booth, or herself, the ones who were responsible for the case? Why Hodgins? Why someone who...never even set foot in a single interrogation, never came to arrest him?

_What about Hodgins had made him the man to remember?_

She glanced again at Angela, sobbing quietly into Booth's suit, and Liam, turning faucets on and off behind them.

_What hadn't?_

If death was a necessary part of life, then why did it only serve to shatter every life left behind?

Brennan commanded her thoughts to a full stop and stepped towards the both of them.

"Angela?", she asked, quiet and timid, her voice hoarse from screaming her way past the officers outside. Brennan reached for her friends shoulder, momentarily forgetting her cherry-red stained fingers.

"Huh-Bren?", she whirled faster than Brennan had time to react whipping her fist into the other woman's cheek, all pure rage and grieving.

"_Shut the fuck up_!", she screamed, grabbing Brennan's arm with a tight grip as she raised a hand to push Angela away.

Blood leaked from her sleeves to Angela's bare wrists, forming a horrifying series of drips down her arm, like chalk tallies on a baseball scoreboard.

Booth stepped toward them; clearly intent on breaking the fight _(was it a fight?)_ up. He stopped dead in his tracks, watching blood trickle from Angela's arm to the floor, his dinner slowly working its way back up his digestive system.

"Bones...", he whispered, brushing his fingers past Brennan's free arm.

It was at that moment that Angela let her go, grabbed Liam off the counter and ran, leaving Brennan's face screwed into her usual clueless expression, and Booth torn between chasing Angela and holding his woman tightly to his chest, thanking God she was still here.

_They were still here._

Keep the reviews coming for more! Next chapter: Where's Angela? And what happens to Liam? 


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Hey! Because I suck and haven't updated in such a long time, you guys are getting TWO chapters today! Keep up the great reviews!

Unidentified Particulates: Chapter 4

Brennan could feel Booth breathing, his body rising and falling as he sucked in air and spat it all back out, arms tangled around her.

"Jesus, Bones_. Oh, my God_.", he murmured into her honeysuckle-scented hair, pulling her into a tighter embrace, until she began to struggle and he loosened his grip, ever so slightly.

"This was nobody's fault, Booth. We...the_ evidence_...", Brennan folded her arms into herself, wondering what her team could have missed.

This wasn't supposed to happen. They'd had their airtight case, every measure of protection taken.

_And yet._

They'd overlooked the one place, the only thing that made them feel untouchable. The place they'd seen as a refuge, with those people they loved the most. That's where they should have known he would go.

Not for his daughter's foster family in Ohio. Not to his brother in Florida, or his Army buddies in San Diego.

Here.

_Straight for the heart._

Brennan forced herself to straighten, biting down on the inside of her cheek as she raised her head to meet Booth's warm, brown, eyes. She had to compartmentalize.

_Now._

She had to do her job and get her..._their_ justice.

"Angela.", she told him, hating herself for sounding ever so slightly shaky.

"We have to find Angela."

She didn't know what she did next.

All she remembered was grabbing her son and running.

_Running. Running. Running. _

She was in a car now, one that lacked Liam's car seat, speeding past...panicked shoppers?

_Were they in a mall? _

_Why?_

Angela swung a left, merging into another lane that lead to a neighbourhood of small, yet well-groomed homes, each housewife looking up from her gardening at the silver blur blasting through their street. Liam wailed in the backseat, bouncing with the car as she turned into another alleyway, back to the main road.

She_ was_ looking for something, wasn't she?

Subconsciously, something told her she knew where she was going, her hands taking control of her mind as she steered through Washington.

Occasionally, when she tried to think, _really _think, she veered dangerously into curbs and a sidewalk market before meeting a bright sign before a playground parking lot.

_Playground._

_That_ was it.

Hitting the brakes, Angela pulled into the lot, slowly as she could to avoid a stream of children licking sherbets in the fading sun. Liam was still in tears, silent tears, in the backseat, his tiny body lurching forward with each stop she made.

"Sweetie, come on.", she whispered hoarsely, taking him in her arms and slamming the car doors behind them. Everything felt numb, as though she'd taken some sort of slow-sucking drug that only wanted her asleep, away from everyone else.

They wandered through the playground's entryway, past blurry, puzzled faces, and colors that even in the darkness, were all too bright. She pushed past a group of teenagers, catching her sweater in a bracelet of spikes around one girl's wrist.

Eventually, they ambled past a fountain, picnic tables, and a newly-build play area, starting their way up a low hill with an almost charmingly understated, old-style swingset at its peak.

Liam's foot tickled her stomach through the rip in her top, icy cold and heavy as she sat him down on one of the swings and gave the little boy a light push, his dark hair blowing in the chilly twilight breeze.

Angela knew this was where she'd wanted to go, though she just couldn't grasp _why._ She pushed herself forward, pumping her legs as the swing gained momentum and took her closer to the stars, glittering in the pale sky.

"Camille? Jesus, what the hell is going on, baby?", Paul shouted through their bedroom door, more than a little put off by the mess in their kitchen and the boy sobbing in a corner in their living room. He knew his girl got into some out-of-this-world stuff at work, but this, on a day when he'd narrowly missed some nutcase murderer and the subsequent traffic jam, was a little much.

"Baby?"

Cam was curled between the wall and her dresser, her carefully applied mascara running black tracks down her face.

"Oh, God. Jesus, Camille, what happened?", he sputtered, kicking off his work shoes and kneeling on the floor beside her.

"Is it...dammit, is Michelle okay? This is about her, right?"

Cam shook her head and forced herself to look up, terrible as she was sure her destroyed makeup and tearstained cheeks might have looked.

"No, Michelle's fine. She's...at Duke, remember? She's fine. _Everyone's fine_.", she muttered, hoping to keep just a bit of her composure.

"Well,_ I'm_ not fine.", Paul snapped, mentally kicking himself after.

They sat in solitary silence, Cam refusing his touch, and Paul, to be honest, more than a little bit confused.

Hodgins would have said something.

Some stupid joke about the nature of death, something that would make her eyes roll and her want to slap him silly.

_Then...what? _

They would gather over the body, examining it with a shared sick pleasure, before the little chuckles would come. Then, they'd start to laugh.

Yeah, laugh at the dead guy hopped up on Red Bull. The woman who'd died in her wedding dress between sheets of cardboard.

The utter...comedic tragedy of life and the shared knowledge that people really sucked.

He would do something, something he'd say was necessary, and useful. Something so blindingly outrageous they'd end up laughing at it too, until whatever terrible truth was written in the case file hurt just a little less.

But Paul wouldn't. The best he could do was squeeze her shoulder reassuringly as he got up to return to parker, leaving Cam alone on the bedroom floor, a news ticker live from Afghanistan in the background.

"And you're sure it's her?", Booth asked, his cell pressed close to his cheek.

"Yeah, she's got the kid with her, right? We're sure. Led us right to her, to be honest, Agent Booth. My guys got a whole line of grandstanding citizens down at the precinct screaming about drunk drivers and junkies with kids.", the officer on the other end replied.

"She's not a junkie. She's...ah, dammit. Sorry, can you give me directions again?"

An hour later, Booth pulled his SUV into the playground parking lot, eyes sweeping the empty park for Angela and Liam.

Brennan was on the passenger's side, unusually without complaint, her hands clenched around the armrests of her seat.

"Booth? I see them.", she said frantically, slamming the door shut and nodding up towards the silhouette of the swingset on the hill. She remembered Angela telling her about the swings, about how Hodgins had once taken her on a date there. Then, Brennan had shot it down at a juvenile romantic gesture and suggested Angela ask him for a legitimate dinner.

Of course she would have come here.

She and Booth made their way through the park, empty equipment squeaking in the night chill. Brennan wrapped her arms around herself as they began to climb the hill and Liam's cries got louder, piercing through the darkness.

"Angela?"Booth asked as he approached, holding a hand up to keep Brennan back.

"I didn't do anything to him!", she shouted back.

Booth came around the swingset, facing the both of them, Angela rocking Liam as he alternated between crying and a fitful sort of sleep.

"He fell off the swing and scraped his knee and I didn't...", Angela let her head drop to her chest as Booth moved to take Liam from her as his head lolled off her shoulder.

"Hey, It's okay, buddy.", Booth whispered as the boy began to wake again, shushing him.

"Booth...", Angela began, then suddenly seemed to lose her thread of thought and stared up blankly at the both of them.

He regarded her with sad puppy dog eyes, as if looking at a train veering off-track that nobody could stop. The bottom of her top swirled in the wind like a torn white flag of surrender. She kicked at the gravel beneath her boots and blew at the resulting cloud of dust.

"I should...go home. There's a million things to take care of and I should go.", she murmured, more for herself than Booth, getting off the swing and tugging at his arms to reach Liam.

"Wait, Angela!", Brennan shouted, having come up the hill with a uniformed officer who had an angry look on his face.

"Please don't do anything stupid.", she pleaded with her best friend. Beyond her, Booth could see an assembled line of cruisers waiting for the arrest. Damned if he had to be the one to collar Angela.

She glared at Brennan, and turned back to Booth.

"What the hell, Booth he's my fucking son!", she shouted, raising her fist to clock him again.

Why was everyone being so damn difficult? She wanted to go home with her son, take a goddamn bubble bath and listen to Jack as he told her everything would be fine...

_Oh...right._

"Miss, I'd strongly recommend you didn't do that.", a stern voice behind her ordered, grabbing her arm and pulling it behind her. Angela struggled against his grip, shooting Booth a pleading glance.

Why wouldn't anyone help her?

"You're under arrest for reckless driving and endangering a minor. I would again, strongly suggest that you stop trying to fight me, miss.", the officer repeated, leading her down the hill.

Booth only glowered at the officers back as they passed Brennan, a genuinely shocked look on her face as he shoved Angela into the back of a cruiser.

Liam kicked in his sleep, oblivious to the sirens and bright lights as they sped away towards the city's still glimmering skyline.

AN: Can this get any worse? Answer: NOPE. It gets better from here. Next, some Parker/Liam fluff, and oh yeah, SWEETS!


End file.
